Accenture carried out the economic modelling after its initial research revealed that only 13 percent of executives at more than 900 large companies said their businesses are getting both greater efficiency and business growth through new revenue streams from their investments in digital technologies. Accenture believes this is due largely to piecemeal deployment and implementation of investments in digital technologies.

For the economic modelling, Accenture examined a range of technological combinations that could best help companies with sales revenues of $1 billion or more in the automotive, chemicals, consumer goods and services, electronic and high-tech, energy, life sciences and utilities industries significantly reduce their cost per employee and grow their market capitalization.

While they vary across industries, the combinations of the technologies—including 3D printing, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), autonomous robots, autonomous vehicles, big data analytics, blockchain, digital twin, machine learning and mobile computing -- can have a significant impact. For instance, companies in the industrial-equipment sector could realize additional cost savings of more than $43,000 per employee if they combined robotics, AI, blockchain, big data and 3D-printing technologies. Energy companies could gain more than $16 billion in market capitalization if they combined technologies such as virtual reality, big data and AI.

“More than just transforming into digital businesses, companies must completely reinvent their operating models, production and value chains to create more value with digital,” said Aidan Quilligan, managing director and lead for Accenture’s Industry X.0 practice. “But our research yields a concrete solution: what we call Industry X.0. It’s an action plan for becoming more adept at embracing technological change and profiting from it.”

Industry X.0 is how Accenture defines the digital reinvention of industry, when businesses use advanced digital technologies to transform their core operations, their worker and customer experiences and ultimately their business models. New levels of efficiency are achieved in the core of R&D, engineering, production, manufacturing and business support through integrated systems, processes, sensors and new intelligence. Worker and customer experiences are reimagined and redesigned through personalization and advances such as immersive, augmented and virtual reality. New business models and revenue streams are unlocked by smart, connected products, services and plants that are enabled by new ecosystems.

The level of demand for Industry X.0 is revealed in Accenture’s survey of 931 executives from 21 countries. Among the respondents, 80 percent want new efficiencies, new growth and new experiences to be delivered all at the same time and that 64 percent agree that failure to leverage the components of digital value will cause them to struggle for survival in the future.

The executive research also revealed a key challenge that will hinder the ability of businesses to innovate with connected and intelligent products. There is a shortage of digital skills among their workforces that is preventing them from innovating with connected and intelligent products (29 percent).

“Most of the business leaders we work with understand the power of digital. They see the potential for digital technologies to bring about transformation and growth and are making big investments in a variety of leading technologies,” said Dave Abood, senior managing director, Resources, Growth & Strategy. “Unfortunately, many aren’t getting the most out of their digital investments. The challenge is that to do so requires a careful balance of transforming core businesses while scaling new ones, which demands new talent, new skills and new competencies in managing the pivot.”

There is positive news for the current workforce, as it is expected that key digital technologies will create new jobs as companies reinvent themselves to reflect Industry X.0. The research indicates that deployment of connected and intelligent products, systems and plant will lead not only to the addition of new responsibilities to existing roles, but also to the creation of entirely new roles. More than half (55 percent) of executives surveyed said they believe that more new roles (in terms of responsibility) will be created than might be eliminated, and approximately the same number of executives (56 percent) said they believe that existing roles will be expanded or evolve.

Methodology

Accenture surveyed 931 senior executives from large companies across 12 industries and 21 industrial countries to understand how companies deploy digital technologies and the benefits they derive from them. We then identified a set of 10 critical technologies; 3D printing, AI, AR/VR, autonomous robots, autonomous vehicles, big data analytics, blockchain, digital twin, machine learning and mobile computing. We used both survey data and company financial data to perform an Economic Value Modelling exercise designed to identify the technology combinations with the biggest impact on top-line and bottom-line value release, as measured by market capitalization and cost-per-employee. We identified the optimum mix of technologies by combining results from machine learning and principal component analysis.

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